advanced seo strategies for 2012 internet world - tim grice

Advanced SEO Strategies

Tim GriceHead of Search

Unnatural Links• In March Google made the biggest change

ever to how they handle linkso Over 1 million unnatural links messages in

WMTo Ranking drops hit 2-3 weeks latero Link clean up needed before re-consideration

should be sent

Our Experience• 50 sites been in contact regarding message• Clean up is difficult as spam sites rarely have

contact info• Legacy SEO agencies may not co-operate in

the removal of links• Google are detecting/penalising blogs selling

posts

Unnatural Links Will Hurt You!

Unnatural Link Profile

Blog Networks

Paid Links

Forum Profiles

Comment Spam

Aggressive Anchor

Text

Google Changes the Game

Anchor Text?

Paid Link Profile

Over Optimisation Algorithm?

Summary• Brand links on bad sites can hurt• Only effects rankings these links are

supporting• If you’re already ranking bad links won’t hurt

(negative SEO)• Link removals are an important part of SEO

Building a Natural Profile

Choose Landing Pages Not Keywords• Do keyword research• Allocate keywords to landing pages• Prioritise pages by sum of keyword search

volume• Vary anchor text across all keywords• Mix in brand variations for good measure

Google wants to rank the best result

Justify links with content

Send To Your Writers

Vary Anchor Text

Variation in Action!

Anchor Text• Decide on 10 – 15 keywords per page• Use ‘Brand’ and ‘Noise’ signals• Use the Google Keyword tool/Suggest/Related

Searches

Social Signals• http://www.blueglass.com/blog/secrets-of-viral-

content/

• Good content always gets far fewer links than it gets social shares

• Make sure that you build social shares at the same time as you get links to make your link building appear natural

Competitor Analysis• Use search metrics to find most shared

content

Tweets as Links?

• Giveaways and competitions

• 1872 tweets• 10th most shared page

Infographics

• 66 links • 119 Tweets• 115 Facebook likes

Link ability vs. Share ability

Share Ability Link Ability

‘Fresh Rank’ • Google wants up to date content• A page can be deemed ‘fresh’ through

inbound links• Links placed in ‘crawled’ content have low

value

Freshness Test

Time To Get Worthy

Link Worthiness

Website

Price Point

Unique Content

Social

Insight

Commentary

Data

Think Referral, Not Link • Why would this site refer traffic to me?• Does the content refer as well as link to my

site?• How did I earn the link?

Links have to be justified in order to look natural

People Link to People

Good content is not enough…..

Shares &

Links

Trust

Relationships

Great Content

Link Building Processes

Link Building process

Competitor

Analysis

Search Google

Shortlist sites

QA process

Story ideas

Pitch stories

Content productio

n

Place links

QA process

Promote links

Track links

Authority Comparison

The News MethodNews

Brainstorm

Shortlist Target Sites

Press Release

Premium PostSocialBlog Roll

Out

Publish

Creating Social Hit list• List all info graphic sites• List all industry blogs• List all sites that have published a similar info

graphic in the pasto Find using searcho Find using “search by image”

• Seed by asking influential users to share via social media

Summary• Remove unnatural links• Address anchor text balance• Focus on being link worthy• Great sites generate shares as well as links• Processes to focus on quality and natural

signals

Questions?

• seowizz.net & blogstorm.co.uk• www.branded3.com

• twitter.com/tim_grice• tim.grice@branded3.com

• We do free link analysis and link strategy for those who email me